Dev Discussion GU95: Survival Mode Feedback Thread

Discussion in 'Concluded' started by Millbarge, May 29, 2019.

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  1. Illumin411 Loyal Player

    I'm still stuck on this round because of this glitch. Nobody in my groups dies of anything else. Once it happens, it's an automatic wipe.

    I'm going try try Amazonian Deflection. If that doesn't work. I'm giving up on SM untl this is fixed.
  2. Draconiano Committed Player

    As far as I know, it doesn't work, I tried it a few times in PANOe and I died while using it. Anyway, try it.
  3. Yaiba Committed Player

    Phase Dodge works against his Heat Vision
  4. Jade Rebel Dedicated Player

    Was helping a friend out with SM R3 and our dps kept falling through the floor, very annoying
  5. AV Loyal Player

    As much as I enjoy the higher rounds and all... can we not do SM seasons very often please? Just asking cuz I'm getting a vibe like you're aiming to make this fairly regular. It's just that its a huge time sink, detracts from other content because of how much of a time sink it is, and I feel like it'd easily lead to DCUO burnout because of the commitment requirement. It's hard to coordinate this much playtime with three other people and the higher you get, the slower LFG becomes so you spend a lot of time waiting. Also, the limited time frame kinda punishes us if we care about it and don't do it and you dropped this in the first month of summer, (would much prefer dead of winter).

    It would be cool if this was just permanent content, with subsequent rounds being added onto existing ones, just switching to a different instance when you cross from 30-31. The limited time makes me feel a few specific things:

    1. Glad I didn't have any vacation or anything planned that'd screw me out of this SM season bs
    2. Pissed this SM season BS behooves me to focus on it and nothing else until its done since I obviously can't just play 24/7
    3. Annoyed that point 2 makes me play the rest of the game less and makes me feel like I can't really play other games til this is done

    I'm pretty much exactly the target player progress demographic for SM content and while I enjoy its gameplay, the delivery leaves a lot to be desired. From a consumer perspective, it feels like the goal is to eat up my time. That feeling is reinforced by the fact that the player demographic to which SM is most relevant is the demographic that's pretty much done the game and most at risk of playing other games. It's ok if people are playing other games though... if anything, playing other games makes it easier to check into DCUO and run stuff than other MMOs that go out of their way to tie players down.
    • Like x 5
  6. AV Loyal Player


    Sorry for the double post but it's too late to edit and I feel this is an important point that bears addition:

    The limited timeframe also devalues the prestige and competitive aspect of completing the content. It could be left in forever with a CR cap with subsequent SM content built on top, in a different instance with it's own tier-appropriate CR cap. That way, the challenge is always there and DCUO gets something it's missing: an instance of permanent, challenging content, always accessible to everyone, the completion of which would always be recognized as an accomplishment and which wouldn't be trivialized by vertical progression.

    As it stands, when/if we hit 30, it's with the heavy caveat that a) it's because we were on/available around the short notice timeframe and window for which SM was announced and took place; b) we had enough free time in that window to play enough to endure the hefty time sink; c) we had played enough beforehand to be in a position to do the content competitively at all. It makes the accomplishment almost irrelevant and borderline pitiable. The constraints on how we play a thing shouldn't make one existentially question whether or not it's sad that one is able to jump through the temporal hoops laid out by an arbitrarily limited content release.

    I was gone from the game for previous SMs and it's never bothered me in that the rewards and fallout thereof were pretty chill/minimal/aesthetic. This SM, however, is not chill. You put in solid combat pets, skins/styles that you know people are going to want and which are more in your face than previous SM rewards, and cool af titles. I just got back to the game in January, and if this SM had been launched a month or two ago, while I still had to focus on other content, I would have been immediately disillusioned with the game and it would have been a real struggle to want to keep playing. Content geared exclusively towards us endgame hardcores is fine... but putting it on a timer is alienating to everyone. With rewards like this, it alienates casuals. The manner and timeframe in which it was launched/announced alienates hardcores who, for whatever reason, are still levelling/grinding cr/sp/artifacts. The limited timeframe alienates endgame hardcores who have jobs/commitments or summer plans (this isn't bloody spring seasonal... this takes a long ******* time to do). Overall, it has pretty hefty potential to be alienating to most of the playerbase. Then there's the fact that our limited time is also being wasted by bugs that, while they shouldn't be there, are totally reasonable/expected based on the release schedule; how infuriating is it to have limited time to devote to limited-time content after fairly short notice it was coming then to have hours wasted by teammates falling through the floor?

    Long story shorty: Great idea, good combat/gameplay, atrocious delivery. It's fun, but simultaneously lowkey infuriating because of the vector you went with.
    • Like x 3
  7. HEALB4 Level 30

    The Survival Mode was not bad but it kind of felt boring because of only 4 players cap > its too limited. 8 Player Survival Mode would be way better so leagues can also get more ppl into a group and much more possiblity of changing tactics and roles.
    • Like x 1
  8. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    I honestly can’t agree with this more. I am absolutely wracked with anxiety and grief every waking hour trying to get through this. I don’t know how much more I can take, or if my relationship with the game will ever recover. :(
    • Like x 2
  9. Knarlydude Loyal Player



    Both Posts are....
    GREAT POSTS!!!!! They are 100% spot on.

    That's the thing with DCUO and it's marketing team. They are stuck in the old days and with mindset that Blue light specials and flash sales gimmicks are how you make the most sales. IMO, it's very shortsighted and has no staying power. They never play the long game. They are always looking for the quick buck which is a huge turn off for a lot of players.
    • Like x 3
  10. Knarlydude Loyal Player

    I think the 4 man SM is 1000% better than the 8 man SM.
    • Like x 1
  11. Knarlydude Loyal Player

    I find that it is a major issue that the levels are saved on even bosses. It's harder to keep people playing when you have to start two bosses back if you wipe on an even number boss. In the future I think that it will be easier to keep people interested if you can save after every boss fight. Each round can take forever as it is and not many people have the time to sit and play a game for 5-10 hours every day. Some can yes but not most. People / players have lives with work, and other things like you guys. I would hope that next time you would take that into consideration with Survival Mode.

    Other than that. I think the 4 man survival mode is great.

    The biggest difference with 4 & 8 man is I have seen a lot less
    [IMG]
    with 4 man.

    The runs definitely go a lot smoother because we have less people, consoles, PC's & internet interacting together within one instance.
  12. HEALB4 Level 30

    You are right at some point. But if you get a checkpoint after every round then it will be too easy. Every 4 rounds would be great for a checkpoint.
  13. Knarlydude Loyal Player

    Blind Q into SM and then tell me if you think it's too easy. It's not easy for the majority of the players that I have blind Q'd SM with and they also do not have the time to sit around on the backsides for hours on end. Most have to leave after a couple rounds. A lot of players might only have an hour or so because they have other things to do other than sitting on their butts for days playing a game that is suppose to be for fun.
    • Like x 2
  14. Jay Smeezy Dedicated Player

    Checkpoint every 2 rounds is fine!
  15. AV Loyal Player


    At 20+, the round duration is completely asinine. While you're correct that the player demographic with the most expendable income is the least likely to be able to sustain an hour or more of completely uninterrupted play, the core issue is that it gets straight up unhealthy. While tanking, I can barely scratch my nose let alone drink water while staring unblinkingly at Zeus' Orbital Strikes going off in my face while holding my piss... I love holding my hands in the exact same position with fingers hovering overOther MMOs (typically much much more archaic ones) do have some longer instances overall but there's plenty of opportunity for a break anytime people need it. This is really up there in terms of sustained, "you can't take your hands off the keyboard for more than a second," and "lol hope you don't have to use the bathroom for the next hour or step away at any time for any reason chump!" "gameplay." It's unnecessary.

    I'm fine if they want to have a permanent checkpoint every two rounds but there should at least be a per-instance checkpoint every other round, ie. If you beat round 25, as long as no one leaves the instance they can start at 26; if they all leave they have to start at 25 again.

    Don't conflate time wastage with skill requirement. Having to beat a first 20-30min fight you've already completely mastered in order to attempt a 2nd 20-30min fight doesn't make the second fight any more or less challenging, it makes the game adept at burning human man-hours for no good reason. The only "challenge" added by doing things this way is the challenge of trying to coordinate so much uninterrupted playtime with other people. This is made worse by the fact that some fights punish people for lagging waaaaay more than others, with 19-20 being a prime example; it's super easy to get someone who's lagging past 19 without them or anyone realizing their connection issues, only for them to never see Ultraman is lunging them in time to roll, and you'll assume it's a fluke and try again, wasting even more time. Failure to create appropriate check/save points is the laziest way of simulating "challenge" that exists in gaming, especially with a game like DCUO where the code's not perfect, and a random bug/glitch/imperfection or lag spike can hose an entire hour long run in an instant.

    Additionally, there's zero reason for the higher level bosses to have so much health. They could cut the health in half and it would be more appropriate, but still way beyond what's necessary to ensure players have actually mastered the mechanics and didn't just get lucky.
    • Like x 2
  16. Yaiba Committed Player

    I would like to see unique mechanics in SM, rather than just normal fight with the health/damage increased. Beside, for certain bosses, as a controller, I feel like I'm fighting against sparring targets which is not fun, nor challenge.
    • Like x 2
  17. AV Loyal Player

    So while I like the strategic challenge in SM, it concerns me in that it's way too close to how some other MMOs handle "hard" content and it's very close to FFXIV's approach. When you try to push difficulty up in a non-FPS MMO (or really any game), you do one of two things 1) Increase enemy stats, 2) Add mechanics. FFXIV endgame uses strict mechanics to the point that fights become bland test-taking Simon Says inspired gameplay. In high level SM, enemy stats are pushed to the point that their normal combat scripts become effectively mechanical for the tank in addition to their normally scripted mechanics, so it's functionally identical to how FFXIV does things, even though non-tanks likely won't notice or appreciate it. It becomes wrote. Its binary. You either do the mechanics and live or you don't and you die. The only difference is that in FFXIV everyone has to do the same mechanics the tank is doing just as quickly as the tank is and if anyone screws them up, everyone usually dies and there's none of this "planning to die as a means of winning" silliness like we're seeing now. We're really toeing the line here on DCUO SM being a fundamentally different game in that for the tank it's pretty much FFXIV, for everyone else it's a DCUO/FFXIV-lite hybrid since they have way less to do. Don't get me wrong, I like that the fights are more engaging for tank than usual but once you cross that threshold where normal attacks/combos become mechanical one-shots, it's a different game. The people petitioning to move even further in that direction are basically asking for DCUO to be outright turned into FFXIV, from which I retired specifically because fights of that nature simply aren't very engaging at all in the long run.

    The people who want DCUO to play like other games would likely be happier just playing those other games. I have historically supported DCUO, when time permitted, because it's not other MMOs. If we want to keep doing SM seasons, it's fine for them to be this mechanical in small doses but there's absolutely no reason for enemies to have so much health, for fights to take so long, or for checkpoints to necessitate replaying brutally long fights we've already mastered. I want to make it clear that I do not want DCUO to be like FFXIV but FFXIV does manage to be much harder without the fights being so pointlessly, mindnumbingly long or requiring players to restart fights/instances from such an unnecessarily degraded position. Put checkpoints before each boss and cut boss health dramatically. Doing these two things would allow you to make fights a little harder and it makes success a direct result of skill, not a function of whoever has the most free time to spam in Test before launch then insta-grind content, or put up with losing 20-30minutes chunks of their day just to re-do specific fights. Also, if we do more seasons, don't charge so much for the aesthetic items and only charge 1 mark for the Serums; the current pricing on most items is a painfully clear cash grab. Lastly, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the limited "seasons" approach is bad and really upsets people who can't commit so much time to the game in such a short period. The limited release approach only benefits a negligible, epeen-centric portion of the population and alienates everyone else.

    Bottom line, I want DCUO to be DCUO. I'd rather my investment not go towards funding more SM, which is less like DCUO and more like FFXIV. The people who are in love with this approach are eventually going to realize that they could just be playing FFXIV and have this exact thing 100% of the time. If you do keep making FFXIV-like SM content, I'd much prefer it be instituted in a way that doesn't have such little respect for players' time. Protracted =/= challenging. Electing to ignore modern checkpoint conventions =/= challenging. The ability to tolerate those two things combined =/= skill.
    • Like x 1
  18. The Dark Kryptonian Well-Known Player

    It would be sweet if the Devs added the Data Chips were also accessible through Stabilizer mission or Vault, so those that don't have the Cr or can't for whatever reason get throw all the stages. Of course those that can't do the missions won't get those boss awards but they'll at lest be able to get items from the vendors

    ;)
    [IMG]
  19. myandria Item Storage

    Ok...

    After dipping my toes in the SM waters, here is my conclusion thus far:

    I TRULY DO NOT LIKE DCUO'S VERSION OF SURVIVAL MODE.:(:mad:

    It doesn't feel like a *special, end game* content that I want to do because of the limited ways of completing the rounds. Those crowns do not mean much, since they seem very easy to get with the same cookie cutter team setup.

    In my opinion, every type of power you can obtain from the game should be able to get through all 30 rounds of survival mode, not just a chosen few. Support players should NOT have to concentrate on any DPS stances that are not already in their power set up. I have to blind queue survival mode because my powers of choice are not *desirable* to the general population to team with. And no, it is not easy to get through rounds with a PUG group because many players have been trained to *run and gun* through the regular game missions.

    I accept the fact that *Pug life is Thug life* and deal very well with it; however, I do not accept the fact that *battle support roles* have become popular with survival mode when there should be NO REASON for support roles to do it in this game. There aren't enough powers/weapon stances that truly allow a *battle troll or a battle healer*. I also refuse to do the task-backwards flurry-shot WM crappy combo for my support toons that has many people swooning. "Oh my, my healer can do 25k damage and with a battle pet I can get to nearly 30k!" Oh yeah? How about converting that damage to add to your HEALING ticks to help keep your teammates upright? No? That's not how it works?:eek:

    I truly wanted to like Survival Mode; however, as a pure support role player I am useless in that content; there is no room for a player like myself there. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait for something better to come along.

    :(
  20. Elusian Crowd Control

    Theoretically SM was designed to feel "infinite" without an end and players not being able to reach said one. That it turned out different is another story.
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